Rackover pal recounts role in E. Side slay

A SUSPECT in the gory 2016 slaughter of Joseph Comunale on Monday cooly recounted his brutal role in the slaying, as the victim’s heartbroken dad wept.

At a pretrial suppression hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court, Lawrence Dilione, 29, detailed, without emotion, the savage events at co-defendant James Rackover’s E. 59th St. apartment early Nov. 13, 2016, when the accused killers cleaned up and then dumped Comunale’s battered body in Oceanport, N.J.

Dilione, wearing a tight-fitting white T-shirt and khakis, admitted knocking the victim out cold, saying he felt “disrespected” by Comunale’s comment during a debate about cigarettes and cocaine.

“I got up and I hit him. I hit him again two times, three max,” Dilione said on cross-examination by prosecutor Antoinette Carter. “I picked him up and I slammed him to the ground which rendered him unconscious.”

But he insisted it was a crazed Rackover who fatally beat, choked and stabbed 26-year-old Hofstra graduate Comunale.